SF’s top cannabis official moves on to state level as adviser to Newsom

Nicole Elliott, who has headed San Francisco’s cannabis office, will become an adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Photo: Richard Vogel / Associated Press

San Francisco will soon be on the lookout for a new point person for pot after Nicole Elliott, the director of the city’s cannabis office, leaves Thursday for a job in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.

Elliott will be Newsom’s senior adviser on cannabis in the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. She’s been leading San Francisco’s cannabis office since it was created in 2017 after previously working as the late Mayor Ed Lee’s director of the office of legislative and government affairs.

The cannabis office’s deputy director, Eugene Hillsman, will lead the agency until Mayor London Breed selects Elliott’s successor.

In leading the cannabis office, Elliott steered the creation of the retail industry in San Francisco after California voted in 2016 to legalize recreational marijuana for adults.

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It was an often bumpy process: Not only did Elliott have to navigate a tangled and politically fraught city bureaucracy, she also had to implement an equity program for would-be cannabis entrepreneurs, which gave advantages to people impacted by the war on drugs.

Elliott couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday. She’ll be joining her husband, Jason Elliott, in the Newsom administration. He worked as chief of staff to Lee, and Mayors Mark Farrell and Breed. He also worked on Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign and was later appointed chief deputy cabinet secretary for the executive branch.

Dominic Fracassa covers San Francisco City Hall for The Chronicle. He previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper. He started in news in his home state of Michigan, where he worked as a news director of 103.9 WLEN.